Google X’s “Baseline Study” applies big data techniques to healthcare

Google X has launched a new moonshot called "Baseline Study," which is intended to help us better understand the human body. Google wants to collect genetic and molecular information that it will use to create a picture of a healthy human. The project will initially start with 175 people and will later expand to "thousands" more. Unlike most Google X projects, Google's hasn't come out and talked about this one; all the information we have comes from a Wall Street Journal report.

The plan is to collect a massive amount of information on healthy people and to use that data to proactively identify and address health problems. Most medicine today is reactive rather than focusing on the prevention of illness—something goes wrong and then you get treatment. Once Google has a good baseline of what a healthy human looks like, that data can be compared to data from other individuals to discover potential problems before symptoms become obvious.

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Larry Page has frequently spoken about the possibility of using big data techniques to improve healthcare while lamenting that privacy laws limit searches through medical data. With the Baseline Study, it seems that Google intends to build a database of its own that can avoid these limits. With all this data, Google will use its big data prowess to search for "biomarkers," or specific molecules that indicate something is amiss. Google won't have free rein over the data, though—the Institutional Review Boards of Duke and Stanford University will review how it intends to use the information.

How will this approach yield practical health benefits? One suggested application involves the identification of a biomarker that's associated with the efficient breakdown of fatty foods. People who lacked this biomarker could eventually suffer problems with fatty build ups in their arteries, but its identification could help them modify their behavior and avoid a potential health problem.

For those keeping track, this is Google's third health-related initiative. The first was Calico, a company Google created to focus on "health, wellbeing, and longevity," and the second was the Google Contact Lens, a contact with embedded sensors which is intended to measure the glucose levels of people with diabetes.

The report describes the project as being in the "early stage." The human body is influenced by very complex interactions among diet, DNA, and proteins, so the leaders of the project admit that it's a jump into the unknown. Like Calico and self-driving cars, this is a long-term effort that will take many years before we see if anything comes of it.

Further Reading

The "California Life Company" will apply Google's 10x thinking to healthcare.

What awaits Google's test subjects? Testing started this summer with the initial batch of 175 people, and it included the collection of "bodily fluids such as urine, blood, saliva, and tears" and information on how well the subject metabolizes food, nutrients, and drugs. The study also did whole genome sequencing and noted the subject's heart rate, family genetic history, and "how chemical reactions change the behavior of their genes" (whatever that means). The plan is to replace some of the follow-up tests with wearable devices that continually collect data on the subjects, like heart rates and oxygen levels. To alleviate privacy concerns, this data will be collected by a third-party, anonymized, and then given to Google.

This approach has been enabled by the fact that the cost of sequencing a genome has gone down so much (and because Google has the cash to spare). With the right combination of data, technology, and cash, Google hopes it can solve some major health problems.

In an interview with Re/code, Sergey Brin said the Google X has eight projects going on, with eight being the maximum number. With this new revelation, here's what we think is on the current list:

Ron Amadeo / Ron is the Reviews Editor at Ars Technica, where he specializes in Android OS and Google products. He is always on the hunt for a new gadget and loves to rip things apart to see how they work.